Spearhead: All The King's Men

by Darksider

Bast has turned the tide of the war at Gryphon and now levels her sights upon Earth.

1. Default Chapter

Spearhead: All The King's Men

Prologue

December 2nd 2010

SHA-CHUNK!!

WHHRRR-FA-WOOOSH!!

The Stargate burst into life, the event horizon reaching explosively outward and then retreating just as quickly to form a vertical pool of rippling quicksilver.

The wormhole fluctuated and with little fanfare an average sized figure in charcoal grey, combat armour suit, flanked by two huge and very heavily armed, armour-clad troopers, stepped onto the stone platform in front of the Stargate.

Brigadier General Samantha Carter fought back a rising tide of rage as she surveyed the darkened landscape through her vision-enhancing visor. Bodies littered the immediate area around the Stargate. Even though it was noon, local time, the sky was dark with thick ash, the air heavy and hard to breathe. Thanks to the orbital strikes, the skies were now thick with dust, blocking out the sun, leaving Cimmeria in permanent twilight. In the distance, clouds of smoke rose from beyond the treeline where forest fires raged out of control.

Her attention was finally drawn to several figures, also in combat armour, standing beside the DHD. "Captain West? Report." She ordered tersely and she strode off the platform to meet him.

Captain West stepped away from his squad. "It's not good, ma'am." He began. "We've performed a recon out to twenty kilometres, as far as the township of Thull. There's nothing there."

Carter stared at him, not wanting to believe his report. "No survivors at all?"

The other man shook his head. "You're in armour so wouldn't be able to tell but its getting harder to breathe around here by the day." He gestured to the landscape. The horizon, which thanks to numerous forest fires, was a fiery red and combined with the black clouds of soot and dust, lent a perfect cast to the dead strewn haphazardly about. "Whoever did this wanted everyone dead. The orbital strikes killed the towns and villages and then they put Jaffa on the ground to finish up the slaughter. These people appeared to have been trying to escape through the Stargate."

Fists balled in frustration, Carter walked slowly among the dead. "This is an Asgard world. These people were protected by the Asgard for so long..."

Captain West sighed disgustedly. "I'd say the cat's out of the bag, General. This was obviously a test and it's safe to say that the System Lords now know that the Asgard Fleet is effectively defunct."

The commander of Spearhead nodded reluctantly. "Bury these people, Captain." She ordered, gesturing to the bodies lying around the Stargate. "It's not much but it's all we can do for them now."

"What about the rest of the Asgard Protectorates, ma'am?" West asked bluntly. "There's gotta be hundreds of worlds out there that have lost their protection..."

"I know, Captain!" Carter interrupted with rising anger. "But what would you have us do? The Fleet has barely recovered from getting its ass handed to it at Gryphon. We're sure as hell in no shape for a crusade at the minute!"

Disgusted with herself for letting her frustration out on her sub-ordinates, she turned away and looked off into the distance instead. The scene of devastation was hardly any comfort, though it matched the blazing fire in her heart perfectly. "We'll make them pay." She murmured. "God knows how, and with God knows what...but we'll make them pay."

Chapter 1
A New Year's Resolution...

11:43 ZULU
December 29th 2009
United Earth World Council Headquarters, Greenwich, England

"We need more ships, not your damned excuses!" A rich, French-accented voice shouted out.

"Then come to the yards and build 'em yourself!" An Australian-accented voice heatedly replied.

"This Council will come to order!"

Premier Illiana Kutsov of the Russian Republic and current Chairman of the World Council, banged her gavel several times in an effort to halt the shouting match that had erupted between the French and Australian heads of state. The Australian Prime Minister Henry Taylor, face tight with anger adjusted his tie and sat down carefully, as if ready to pounce into the fight once more at the slightest provocation. The French Chief of State, Prime Minister Montagne sneered one last time as he sat in his seat. The rest of the Council, all one hundred and eleven of them, sat back, slightly amused or disgusted by the display but remained silent except for the occasional chuckle.

Kutsov shot a warning glance at Taylor and then glared at Montagne. "Prime Minister Montagne, I understand feelings are running high but there will be no insults slung back and forth in this chamber as if it was some schoolyard. I am making myself clear, yes?"

At Montagne's reluctant nod, she turned to Prime Minister Taylor, who nodded tightly.

President Kinsey rolled his eyes from the sidelines as he watched Premier Kutsov bring the heads of state to task very much in the manner of a school headmistress. Wearily, he consulted his notes on the current slow down in military construction. Abrasive manner aside, Montagne had a point. The Navy did need more ships. Unfortunately, Taylor also had a point. There were only so many resources available to put into construction and ships and fighters and the massive construction yards in the US, Great Britain, Germany and Australia were beginning to show the strain of nearly five years of continuous output. There were simply too many priorities and not enough raw materials.

There were a few prospects on the horizon to relieve this bottleneck, notably of which was the Japanese-South African asteroid mining project. Strange bedfellows that they seemed, they were well suited to the task; the Japanese had the high-technology, the South Africans had the mining experience and both had vast cash reserves which they ploughed into the project. Unfortunately, initial progress was still slow and the imports of ores and refined metals from the asteroid belts were still years away from being anything more than a trickle.

Kinsey found himself glancing across the Chamber at the hulking grizzly bear of Admiral J'Thuk from Sintesia who was sat amongst the more human-looking Admiral Serena from Polaris and Admiral Marakesh from Entrica. They were all sat to one side of the Council Chambers behind the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Sir Henry Patterson. The other 'Forge Worlds' of the Alliance were in similar positions to Earth except for Sintesia who, despite having almost as many internal conflicts as Earth, had been in space for almost two hundred years and had been making full use of their Solar System's resources for a long time.

( Historical Index - 0014-5336 Sintesian First Contact - With a war-depleted population of only a billion or so natives, the grizzly bear-like humanoids of Sintesia proved to be a god-send of the Alliance. Far from the Goa'uld territories, the Sintesians had evolved without any alien interference in their entire recorded history (which went back almost twenty thousand years...) the Stargate having been buried deep under one of their mountains. Quite by accident, one of their mining teams found the Stargate (with no DHD) and once their government got their hands on it, they spent the next ten years figuring it out.
In the course of their experimentation and the random dialling of the chevrons, they managed to get two addresses working. One address led to a desolate wasteland, the other to a lush world with no sentient natives. A perfect place for a colony their leaders thought and so by the equivalent Earth year of 2007, nearly twenty million Sintesians had made a home on that green, fertile world. Unfortunately, that world also lay on the far side of the Galaxy, smack in the middle of the territory of a relatively minor System Lord who served under Bast's Union.
Upon learning of their presence in his territory, the System Lord, typical of his kind, sent two Hat'ak Motherships to subdue the colony for possible slaves. The Jaffa Legions attacked, expecting a quick victory but soon found themselves pushed back hard, the days of fighting stretching into weeks. The Sintesians, the xenobiologists said, were not a warrior race per se, but attacking a fully sentient life form that had an average height of seven feet, twice human norm strength and who still remembered the lessons learnt from a global war probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.
Still, the System Lord sent more Legions into the fight and the Sintesian defences steadily began to buckle until, thanks to Tok'ra Intelligence who heard whispers of the small war being raged, the brand new ships of the Earth Navy arrived unexpectedly in orbit and blew away the Hat'ak Motherships.
SG-Alpha, SG-Beta, SG-Gamma and SG-Delta swooped down in the Orca transports, covered by flights of Sabres and Pegasus bombers and hit the rear positions of the Jaffa army hard.
Though unable to communicate linguistically, the Sintesians didn't need to talk to realize the current intentions of their new benefactors, and pressed hard against the Jaffa. Caught between two armies, the Jaffa Legions were wiped out.
The Sintesian and Human forces were wary at first but as basic communication steadily improved and thanks to a little Tollan help, a 'universal translator' was put together and the first steps towards the Alliance were taken.)

Regardless, thanks to the numerous construction yards of the Alliance and despite the shortage of resources, Third Fleet was almost back to full strength but their losses at Gryphon had set fleet expansion schedules back by months, if not years.

Kinsey returned his attention to Kutsov, who had moved the conversation towards the recent slaughter of the people of Cimmeria.

"There is an Alliance Security Council meeting in four days. I imagine there will be talk of forming some sort of response to this atrocity. Are they any considerations you would like to see brought before the Council?"

The Japanese Foreign Minister used his desk computer to signal his desire to speak. Kutsov noted the signal and gestured for the diminutive man who was covering for the Japanese Prime Minister, Isagi Kaneda, who was ill and unable to make the trip to the Council Meeting. "Thank you, madam chair. I wish to enquire whether the response would include punitive military strikes against Goa'uld installations or whether circumstances dictate changes made to our defensive strategy?"

Kinsey rolled his eyes once more but this time in disgust. "What you mean is, is the Fleet actually able to form a military response since we got our butts kicked so hard the last time?"

The Foreign Minister ignored the sarcasm and considered the American's sarcastic statement with all seriousness. "Yes. That is exactly what I am asking."

Kutsov suppressed a grin and gestured to the Lord Sir Henry Patterson, who was seated to one side as the military advisor to the Council for this meeting.

Sir Henry didn't bother to hide his smile of amusement as he levered himself up out of his comfortable chair next to Admiral J'Thuk and moved towards the centre of the Council Chamber. The subject he was about to discuss, however, wiped the smile from his face quickly enough.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Council, the Alliance military chiefs have thought long and hard since the news of the Asgard Fleet's mutual annihilation with the Replicators. I cannot stress how much danger this places everything we have achieved to date."

He gestured to an aide at the side of the Council Chamber who manipulated a computer, activating the massive wall screen display. A long list of planets with small data blocks on each one began to scroll down the screen.

"Recently, we asked the Asgard to provide us with a list of worlds in our Galaxy that used to fall under their protection. Since the attack on Cimmeria and a handful of other worlds the Goa'uld have taken recently, that number stands at four hundred and fifteen."

A fragile silence greeted this announcement. There had been some talk among the Council members of taking over the duties of the Asgard and bring their protectorates into the Alliance but the Navy didn't really have enough ships to defend one defenceless world against a concerted attack, let alone over four hundred.

Admiral Patterson nodded grimly as if he could read their thoughts. "As you can see, this number is quite larger than any of our chaps had considered. The good news is that barely three hundred of those systems fall within Goa'uld territories and the System Lords have only ever shown interest in two hundred and forty two of them. Stargate Command has begun generating Stargate addresses for the worlds outside the Goa'uld sphere of influence in the hope of enlisting them in the Alliance but since the Asgard don't generally protect worlds that can actually protect themselves, we hold little hope that these world will provide any significant military presence in the near future."

The German Chancellor frowned. "They're more likely to be a burden if we take on the task of upgrading a hundred low-tech worlds. We're barely making progress now, courting half a dozen low-tech worlds, as it is."

Patterson shrugged. "You're right, of course. As I said, near-term, we don't expect any significant returns from whatever investment we make, but long-term, such a decision to invest would reap massive dividends."

The Peruvian President leaned forward, intently. "What about General Directive 3? I'm sure many of these worlds would fall under its auspices..."

The Admiral of the Fleet turned to Chairman Kutsov and acknowledged his silent request to respond to that question. "Mr President, I can assure you that we will send a probe and if any of the civilisations appear to have a...how did the social-xenobiologists put it? A 'high-negative response quotient', we will forego any First Contact and let them develop without any outside interference, from the System Lords or the Alliance, as per General Directive 3."

Assuaged, the Peruvian head of state leaned back, gesturing for the Admiral to continue.

"To get back to the Foreign Minister's question...No, we have no plans to form a specific military response beyond that strike plans already developed. To deviate any more than we already have with the 'Battle of Gryphon' would run further risk to Operation Spring Clean." The Admiral shook his head. "Quite frankly, we want to keep the focus on Gryphon at the minute and so we've assigned the refurbished Third Fleet to run constant ops against the Goa'uld forces in the Gryphon system. Nothing decisive or too destructive to our forces, just enough to keep them off balance and wear them down on a continual basis, forcing them to reinforce constantly, allowing us to build up our forces for a decisive fight to take and hold Gryphon once and for all."

Premier Tang of China grunted softly. "You failed to hold Gryphon the first time, what makes you confident you can hold it again?"

"Quite." Patterson smiled tightly and gestured to the Sintesian Admiral. "You see, sir, the planetary defences we installed on Gryphon were very limited in numbers and sparsely emplaced. The Sintesians are digging deep and producing as many components as possible and as time goes by, we have managed to begin building up a very respectable defence grid on each world of the Alliance. Enough so, that combined with a large Navy presence, we are confident of soon being able to hold off an attack from a force three times stronger than what we faced at Gryphon, meaning as many as fifteen Shal'kra's or over thirty Hat'ak's."

The entire Council seemed to be simultaneously surprised and impressed. The thought of watching thirty Motherships destroy themselves against Earth's defences seemed to appeal to some of them.

Kinsey was sat silently, manipulating the computer embedded into his bench and scanning the latest strategic intelligence reports on Goa'uld intentions. One report caught his attention immediately. "Admiral Patterson, could you explain to me what you believe the probable intentions of Bast and her cronies are? Outside of the Gryphon conflict that is..."

Patterson cursed silently under his breath. He had hoped that the Council wouldn't notice that until after the meeting had finished. The last thing he needed was a panic among the upper echelons of power. "You are referring to the reports of Bast's build up, in apparent readiness to begin a new offensive against Yu and the Separatists?"

Kinsey smiled grimly at the British Admiral's attempt to avoid the issue. "No, Admiral, I mean the one concerning Earth."

"Ah, that." Patterson replied, glancing at Kutsov who shrugged as if to say it was a forlorn hope that none of the others would notice that specific report. Taking a deep breath, he readied himself for the onslaught.

"Mr President, the report you mention refers to Strategic Intelligence's assessment that ONE of Bast's next probable moves is a serious strike at Earth."

The entire Council erupted in an uproar. Suddenly, the thought of thirty Motherships in Earth orbit didn't seem so appealing.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Lord Sir Admiral Patterson walked through the side exit of the council chambers with a dark expression on his face, muttering about 'thrice-damned politicians', only to be met by the weathered, craggy face of General Stuart, and General O'Neill who was leaning casually against the far wall of the corridor.

"Told you they'd freak over that report, Henry." Stuart began, smiling widely. "Nothing like a little personal risk to get the politico's blood pumping and the feet beating...a path to the secure bunkers that is."

Patterson shook his head in wonder at the spectacle he had just witnessed. "They were practically ready to call DefCon 1 right then and there."

O'Neill snorted in amusement. "Whaddya expect? Anyhow, it'll be good for them to live life on the edge for a while."

Looking at the two Americans with a gimlet eye, Patterson forced his attention to other matters. "And just what are you two misfits doing, haunting the halls here in Greenwich?"

Stuart gestured for them to start walking as he explained. "Me, O'Neill here and President Kinsey are making a tour of the shipyards here on Earth. We've been to our Connecticut, Philadelphia and Colorado yards this past week, tomorrow we hit the Vosper yards here in the UK and the Bremerhaven yards in Germany and in four days we visit the Victoria yards in Australia."

"Lighting a fire under the yard managers?" Patterson asked.

"Not really." O'Neill replied as they walked by a small collection of American, Chinese and Korean officers who had scooted with haste to one side of the corridor and were practically hugging the walls in order to let the three most ranking men in the Alliance past. "Even Kinsey acknowledges the current construction problems are due to a materiel bottleneck. No, he just wants to see each of the yards personally, see the workers and give them his thanks and so on. It's the President's last term, you see, and the Yards have been his baby since the very beginning. He was the one who pushed through the funding bills and research sharing programs that built the yards in the first place."

"He's still an annoying bugger to deal with though." Patterson added.

Stuart smiled wryly. "Kinsey might be a pain in the ass but he actually listens to his people, or at least the right people, which is a lot more than more that most politicians seem to do." He nodded pleasantly to a French Major and an Israeli Colonel that walked past them as they reached Patterson's office. They greeted the civilian secretary at the front desk and walked straight in. "Is Third Fleet ready to go back out again?" Stuart asked quietly once they had made themselves a coffee each and sat down at Patterson's desk.

The Admiral of the Fleet nodded firmly. "Admiral Kent has absorbed pretty much all of the new construction and all of the trainees from the Naval Academy. Even though we're still using experienced naval officers, they're still pretty raw when it comes to duty in space but the veteran's in the Fleet are working them hard. Kent's confident he can take on anything in his weight class and win."

Stuart nodded and looked at O'Neill in satisfaction. The reports that came across his desk regarding Third Fleet had said much the same thing. O'Neill shifted in his chair slightly and frowned slightly as he studied the British Admiral. "I know you've already assigned a series of strike missions to Admiral Kent but I have a couple of extra jobs I want you throw his way."

Patterson frowned concernedly. O'Neill was the senior military chief and if he wanted a target hit, he only had to attach it to the 'targeting' list and it would get farmed out to the next available asset capable of doing the job. "You want it done unofficially then, I assume, since you're giving me a tasking order over a cup of coffee."

Slightly uncomfortable under the Admiral's pointed gaze, O'Neill raised his hands in surrender. "Relax, Henry, it's nothing treasonous, just something I don't want the Diplomatic Corp to raise a stink over."

"Oh?" Patterson replied with studied casualness. Stuart suppressed a smile as he saw that the Admiral was more than a little intrigued, despite the cloak and dagger routine.

"Yeah, what it is, you see, is that the diplomats have been putzing around for over a year, trying their damnedest to bring the Adenans and the Susparti into the Alliance, with little success to date."

Patterson grimaced and shrugged helplessly. "From what I understand, the Adenans are fairly xenophobic, even if they are more or less human. They barely respond to the diplomatic envoys, let alone take part in a dialogue. And the Susparti...hell, if anybody claims to be able to understand what goes on in the head of those lizards they'll be the first, and probably a liar at that!"

Stuart nodded in agreement. "All true to a point. But some of my analysts have been going over the diplomatic exchanges, cultural databases that have been exchanged to date, that sort of thing and they believe that we've gotten nowhere with either race because all we've done is talk to them."

"That's what diplomat's do, Orin..." Patterson pointed out.

"Yeah, but we my boys and girls think is that they would respond more favorably to a show of force. Not against themselves but against the Separatist System Lords they've been fighting off."

"Now hold a second, gentlemen, if we move against the Separatists, even in a limited fashion, we could push them under Bast's Union and then we'd all be well and truly screwed." Patterson replied heatedly.

Both generals winced slightly but remained calm. Stuart sighed. "Henry, it's a risk, I know but since day one this war's been about balances and tradeoffs. I know it's not something we'd want to move on right away but you've read the same reports I have. Bast and her people have been kicking Separatist butt up and down the Galaxy. Our projections of the war are being revised steadily as she frees up more and more units to bring to bear against us. We need more powerful allies and the Adenans and especially the Susparti have both held their own, alone, against several System Lords for a lot longer than we've been in space. They'd be a massive boost to the Alliance, Henry, and I think the risk is worth it."

Patterson sighed. "What is it, exactly, that you want me to do?

O'Neill smiled and passed over a small datapad. "The Adenans have done incredibly well fighting off the Goa'uld attacks but if you read between the lines, I think they're becoming desperate. No matter how advanced their technology, they're only one world and they can't support the fleet a successful defense demands. They're desperate but their admittedly justified xenophobia, built up of having fought parasitic aliens for the better part of a century, prevents them from asking for help. I think helping them out anyway with show them that a partnership can be of mutual benefit. Detach a scout section to deploy sat-probes and patrol the areas around Adenan space. If and when a Goa'uld force shows up, kill it."

"You're going to get me court-martialled." The Admiral replied evenly. "How do you think the Adenan will respond?"

"They won't, at first. But if my guess is right, our diplomatic exchanges should start to become a lot more responsive real quickly."

Patterson grinned. "You know Shiv will throw a fit when he finds out what you've done."

Stuart shrugged. "Who's gonna tell him?"

Shaking his head in exasperation, Patterson acquiesced. "Very well. I'm planning continual recon sweeps of the Gryphon system, looking for any weaknesses in the Goa'uld lines to prey upon...a few scouts sent to Adenan space won't be missed in the shuffle."

"Excellent." O'Neill replied. "Since we lost all communication with Gryphon, we have little idea how things are progressing there and any intelligence you can acquire would be invaluable. I have an operation in the works whose objective is to hit a wide range of Union assets, forcing Bast to use up her reserves there as well as at Gryphon. If we can start rolling back Bast's available forces, perhaps she won't contemplate a strike on Earth after all."

Lord Sir Henry Patterson, Admiral of the Fleet raised his eyebrows at the sheer naked optimism that comment revealed. "One can hope..."

03:21 LOCAL
Sector Four, Edo Defense Line, Gryphon

It wasn't even dawn and the skies were still dark as General Tyler, commanding officer of the Capital Guards, stood at the lip of a trench in Sector Four of the Edo defense line and looked out cautiously through a pair of electro-binoculars to see into the 'No-Man's Land'. As far out to ten kilometres, the churned up, blistered and cratered ground was littered with burnt out Gryphon Army 'Katana' tanks, Jaffa attack scorpions and transport beetles and more than a few unrecovered bodies from both sides. This position, a lynchpin point in the outer line of defense, was three miles from the edge of Edo, right up to the circumference of the city's canopy shield.

The CO of this Sector, Commander Ashigara Morton, stood beside him patiently, wondering what he'd done to deserve a visit from the General this early in the morning.

"There's a lot of destroyed enemy armour in this Sector. More here than in Sector's Seven and Eight combined." The General commented.

Commander Morton shrugged. "We were hit pretty hard last week."

"Your losses?"

"Relatively light. Thirty-eight dead, forty-two wounded, eight missing in action. I lost thirty-two Katanas pushing them back two days ago." His teeth bared themselves in a feral smile, the first sign of overt emotion Tyler had seen from the Commander in almost a fortnight. "We took over twenty Scorpions in exchange."

Tyler smiled internally at the outstanding exchange ratio for the tanks but displayed no outward sign of it. The Type 4 Katana tank was no match for the Goa'uld Scorpions but Gyphon factories could produce Katanas much faster than Hek'at could produce his six legged monstrosities.

The invasion had been going on for two months now and Intelligence put Jaffa losses at almost thirty thousand dead. Not counting the local offensives that chewed up the Katana tank divisions, Gryphon losses were less than half than those of the Jaffa thanks to the traditional advantage of the defender but that was still too many for Tyler's comfort. "It'll be almost two weeks till the next land-train from the factories in New Kurasaki, can you hold your Sector till then?"

"As long as you need us to, sir." Morton replied confidently.

A low, pounding rumble was suddenly felt through the soles of their feet. Tyler looked to his comms officer who stood to one side, his hand against the side of his head, listening intently to his secure tactical radio.

"Sector Nine is taking fire along their front, both direct and indirect artillery. No sign of a push forward by infantry or armour." The comms officer reported in the emotionless voice that only the best radio operators can achieve when under intense stress.

Tyler nodded absently even as the exhausted, sleeping soldiers around him ignored the exchange as intently as the officers who knew the General was here, followed it. The artillery was a wake-up call from Hek'at, just to see if anybody was asleep over here. No doubt he had several Legions hidden away, ready to make that push just in case his artillery fire had unexpected, beneficial results. The Sector commander over there knew his stuff, however, and there was no need for him to interfere so Tyler simply grunted in acknowledgement and went back to scanning the field in front of him.

The sky above him suddenly exploded in orange fire as plasma blasts from orbiting Goa'uld Motherships impacted against the canopy shield, causing the sleeping soldiers to jerk awake, grab their weapons and move into position against the trenches.

The comms officer was receiving an update before the fire had barely started. "Long range orbital fire from two Hak'at Motherships. Heavy but inaccurate at their current range..." A plasma blast ploughed into the ground a kilometre away, outside the range of the shield. The megajoules of energy blossomed outward in a wave of intense heat. Seconds later, the heat wave passed over the front lines, causing some of the soldiers to shy away. "...Shields are holding. General Roberts is requesting your presence back at HQ." The comms officer finished.

The General stepped down from the lip of the trench, handing the electro-binoculars back to Commander Morton and looked around at the now wide-awake troops.

"Gonna be a hell of a day." He announced to no one in particular.

* * * * * * * * *

03:32 LOCAL
Edo Defense Command Centre

Ten minutes later, General Tyler strode swiftly past the guards at the main door and into the Command Centre. An almost subliminal rumble shook the facility as another volley from the Motherships in orbit hit the canopy shields protecting Edo. Tyler surveyed the officers and technicians of the Strategic Command Centre working intently at their stations. In front of the main screen, General of the Fist and Supreme Commander of the Gryphon Army, Tadeshi Roberts stood calmly, hands behind his back, studying the display which showed several Hat'ak Motherships dancing around the outer edge of the atmosphere.

Tyler approached the other General while watching the display and grunted as the return volley of shots from the Edo defense system went wide of the evading Motherships.

Roberts shook his head slightly and turned his head to face the gunnery officer. "Hold your fire, those Hat'ak's are too manoeuvrable to hit at this range."

As the gunnery officer acknowledged the order, Roberts turned and greeted his second in command. "Tyler, how's the defensive line looking?"

"Solid, sir." Tyler replied. "A couple of sectors have taken a real pounding and we might need to raid some of the reserves to get them back to strength but other than that, we're still in pretty good shape." He gestured to the massive display screen. "What's going on, sir?"

General Roberts manipulated a small console near his right hand and brought up on the main screen a small window which displayed a 300km tactical display of the Manticore City-Shipyards. "We initially thought it was an all out attack. Their Hat'ak's are pounding the defense systems of cities all over the damn planet. Analysis shows that they're only actually pushing hard against Manticore. The bombardments elsewhere appear to be just to keep our heads down and distracted."

Tyler whistled in respect as he studied the tactical display. Small windows appeared showing video uplinks from various positions in the Manticore defensive line. Over 25 Jaffa Legions were hitting the Manticore defenses, backed up by several dozen echelons of Scorpions and Death Gliders. "That's a lot of metal. Can Manticore hold?"

General Robert's neutral expression belied his internal worry. "Commander Helen seemed confident. Apparently, SG-Omega are already in a fortuitous position outside the defense perimeter, beyond the Jaffa lines. She's initiated Plan Raider 2 and as per the plan, she wants us to make as much noise as possible in eighteen minutes." He replied, pointing to a screen that was five times as wide as it was tall and was dedicated to showing operational timelines. At the moment, the pointer was near still near the beginning of the timeline 'Raider 2'. A small clock to one side showed 'T+ 00h:08m:42s and was counting upwards steadily.

Tyler nodded in understanding and moved over to the communications post, ready to issue the necessary orders to his people.

03:46 LOCAL
Defense Command, Manticore City, Gryphon

Commander Helen of the Axe bit her lip as her mind whirled in thought. The Jaffa were pushing hard against her defenses and though they weren't using as many troops as they had when taking Wakazi in the opening stages of the invasion, they were using enough to worry her.

In the following weeks after the loss of Wakazi, Hek'at had pushed hard against Manticore, rightly seeing the city-shipyards as his next biggest threat. Unfortunately for him, he attacked with only fifteen Legions, less than half of that used against Wakazi and they were slaughtered. That massive loss bought Gryphon High Command a couple of weeks while he brought more Legions through the Stargate and a few light Motherships arrived to reinforce him. As soon as his forces had built up to respectable levels once more, Hek'at somehow managed to block all interstellar communications, cutting off any transfer of information between Gryphon and the rest of the Alliance, and then he attacked three of the smaller shielded, 'sanctuary' cities. Two fell within a week, the third city lasted another nine days before Hek'at broke through their defensive line and for a while, High Command were stunned by the sudden turn of events until fractured reports from those three cities began to filter out.

The citizens of those cities had all been issued whatever weapons could be found and Legion upon Legion of Jaffa were being tied down in suppressing the resisting Gryphonese men, women and children. The city streets had become meat grinders, the buildings had become charnel houses and the average life expectancy of a Jaffa sent into the cities was extremely short indeed.

All of that, combined with the fact that Hek'at had managed to scrape together over twenty Legions and their supporting armour to attack the Manticore city-shipyards meant that he was getting serious about taking the place this time.

"I guess we'll just have to alter his perspective a little..." She murmured to herself. She looked over to her Tactical lieutenant. "Is SG-Omega ready to go?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Helen smiled in anticipation as the numbers on the timeline rolled forward inexorably.

03:48 LOCAL
SG-Omega, Point X-Ray

Colonel Avon grimaced as two Death Gliders over flew his position. He shifted his head slightly as they flew off towards the Jaffa Legions attacking the Manticore defenses less than a kilometre away, completely ignoring the one hundred and eight combat armoured troops, strung out in a line across five hundred meters, which were steadily creeping into the Jaffa Legions rear area.

Smiling to himself, he found he couldn't really fault the Jaffa pilots, not when even his armour's enhanced vision had immense trouble spotting the active stealth camouflage of the Mod 1 Combat Armour's nano-matrix skin. The skin utilised microscopic light receivers and emitters that projected light patterns based upon its surrounding environment. The result was something almost exactly like the alien used in that old 'Predator' movie. The suit was relatively easy to spot when moving rapidly but when the wearer was being subtle, you were hard pressed to spot anything at all.

Rumour had it that the boffins at Stargate R&D were experimenting with light-bending technology utilised by those damnable Goa'uld Ashrak assassins, that would make its wearer totally invisible but for now, the Mod 1 suits did their job just fine.

Focussing his attention back to his current situation, Avon realised he was in position. They were currently at the far end of the Tensi Flatlands, a vast expanse of deserts, narrow ravines, small gullies and low ridges that separated Manticore from Wakazi. SG-Omega had used the terrain to good effect and managed to get within three hundred metres of the Jaffa rear assembly area.

In front of him, numerous Jaffa were running back and forth, firing heavy artillery pieces, repairing damaged vehicles and bringing wounded back from the front. His suit computer beeped a warning as a small timeline in the bottom right corner of his visor flashed brightly for his attention.

Time to risk a quick transmission. "Omega units, squawk IFF."

The burst transmission was unlikely to be picked up by Hek'at's Jaffa, especially coming from so close to his receivers where they wouldn't really be looking, but Avon needed to know that all his people were in position. To help with their stealth approached, each Omega trooper had damped down on their suit's electronic emissions, rely on passive sensors only. Now, seconds from their strike, they each risked a quick burst from their IFF transponder, a beacon that allowed the commander to locate each of his invisible soldiers.

In the space of a second, a line of signals appeared on a small tactical map, projected in front of Colonel Avon by his suit visor. Everybody appeared to be position. The timeline beeped once more, even more urgently and a rumble filled the air around him as the Manticore planetary defense system opened fire, sending white bolts of ions into space. In the far distance, Avon though he could make out ion bolts lifting up from the other cities nearby.

General Roberts was playing his part in 'Raider 2' and was providing a distraction.

Now it was time for SG-Omega to play theirs. "All right people, the command post and artillery sections are your primary targets, everything else is secondary but do not, repeat, DO NOT fire upon the Jaffa hospital areas unless you have absolutely no choice. Hek'at and his people have been pretty good about our wounded, we can at least do the same for them."

A string of acknowledgements came back to him from his platoon commanders.

Avon took a deep breath. "ECM section, start your jamming...everyone else, attack!"

* * * * * * * *

Mak'han grunted with the strain of hauling the spent power cell away from the heavy artillery piece and towards the small dump they had set-up to one side. Heaving the spent cell into position with one last burst of effort, he released his pent up breath and relaxed, his arms and back aching from the continuous efforts of he and his Jaffa brothers this past morning and afternoon.

Pulling a small water container from his belt, he drank deeply and stared out across the wide-open, broken terrain, away from the explosions and his dying brothers as they assaulted the Gryphonese city. Except for the heat, it was much like home. Mak'han frowned slightly as his eyes were drawn to something odd. The ground in the near distance seemed to ripple and blur with disturbing, unnatural intensity. At first he thought it was simply the heat rising from the ground but it was coming from several distinctly separate locations that appeared to be moving closer.

Mak'han wasn't a brilliant man, he wasn't known for his intelligence among his peers and for the most part, it had never bothered him or his brothers but for the first time in his life, his mind put several obscure clues together in a lighting flash of intuition and provided him with the answer. Enemy intruders!

Unfortunately, as he opened his mouth to warn his brothers of the threat he had discovered, a cloud of tungsten darts, accelerated to a good fraction of the speed of light ripped through his chest, killing him before he had even realised he'd been hit.

The shimmering blurs advanced quickly past the dead Jaffa, inside the Legions rear and opened fire.

03:52 LOCAL
Mothership 'Fist of the Gods', high orbit of Gryphon

Hek'at frowned as a massive volley of fire erupted from the defense system of all the cities that could range on an enemy target. A lot of the fire went wide but sheer volume meant that a significant number of shots still slammed against the shields of his ships.

"Evasive manoeuvres." He ordered as the bridge rattled from a hit.

A Jaffa Second turned from his console on the right side of the bridge. "First Prime, incoming message from Second Dre'tec."

"Put him through."

The main screen in front of Hek'at flickered into a hash of static that cleared for a moments and then scattered into static once more. "Dre'tec! Report!" Hek'at called out.

"ZZZZZ....attack underway...ZZZ... jamming com....ZZ...unknown number....in our rear...ZZZZZ...." The static cleared suddenly as the Jaffa Second on the bridge made an adjustment to his receivers. "....came out of nowhere and are ripping my rear area to pieces."

Hek'at grimaced as another Jaffa brought a tactical display of the area on a secondary screen showing the disposition of the Jaffa Legions and the approximate positions of the attacking force in Dre'tec's rear. Small windows showed imagery from the rear area.

The assembly area was in chaos, something appeared to be blowing the hell out of Dre'tec's command post, slaughtering the artillery crews and destroying vital supplies for the twenty five Legions that were almost kilometre away, attacking the Manticore defenses. But the hell of it was, they couldn't even see who it was attacking them!

"ZZZZZ...am pulling back to secure...ZZZZZZ....reserves moving up....ZZZZ..." Dre'tec continued to report through the hash of jamming.

Hek'at cursed as he realised the Tau'ri plan. "NO! Dre'tec, the rear attack is a feint! Keep your men oriented toward Manticore! Dre'tec!!" Hek'at turned desperately to the Jaffa Second at the communication console.

The Jaffa shook his head. "I can't guarantee Second Dre'tec received your transmission, there's too much interference at his position..."

Cursing once more, Hek'at tried to raise other Jaffa other outside the source of the jamming. He had to stop Dre'tec from turning his attention from the Manticore defenses.

* * * * * * * * * *

04:01 LOCAL
Defense Command, Manticore City, Gryphon

Commander Helen nodded in satisfaction as the lead elements of the Jaffa Legions slowed to a halt in confusion as the logistical area behind them exploded in death and chaos. Low-altitude drone recon imagery showed the rear echelons of Jaffa turning around and heading back to the assembly area to attack the unknown foes that were ripping into their unprotected belly.

Turning to her Tactical lieutenant, she snapped her fingers and pointed towards the main screen. "Send the signal, I want the 8th, 171st and 316th to attack their flanks now! I want a brigade, two if they have them, sent down the middle to reinforce the 9th as they make a limited push forward! Nothing too aggressive, just keep those lead elements of Jaffa pinned down while we encircle them."

The lieutenant inclined his head in understanding and spun round to relay the orders.

Helen turned to her Air-Ops officer, an Earth Navy Captain who had stayed behind on Gryphon with the rest of the Third Fleet fighter elements, when Admiral Kent had evacuated the system.

"Captain West...my flanking forces will need air cover. Fighter and bomber support is at your discretion." Commander Helen informed him.

West nodded respectfully. "Aye ma'am. I'm extending the combat air patrols out beyond the shield perimeter and I have controllers assigned to flights of bombers awaiting 'frag' orders from the ground elements."

Pleased with his initiative, Helen turned back to the main screen and watched her orders take effect.

* * * * * * * *

Colonel Avon landed on his back with a mighty crash, raising a thick plume of dust, his chest plate glowed yellow and hissed harshly from the direct hit he had just taken from a Scorpion tail gun. Two escorting SG-Omega troopers reacted quickly and ripple fired their rail-guns, the first hyper-accelerated tungsten dart smashing the frontal shields of the six legged vehicle, the second dart blowing through armour plating with ease. The Scorpion detonated in a blinding white light, the shockwave blasting outward and sending nearby Jaffa flying in all directions.

Captain Jonas Quinn skidded to a stop next to the prostrate form of the Colonel. "Colonel Avon!"

The deathly still armour jerked sharply as Avon suddenly regained consciousness and bolted upright in alarm. He gritted his teeth in pain just as quickly as his chest screamed in protest.

"Arrgghh, god, that hurts..." He spitted out through his tightly clenched jaw.

Jonas shook his head in awe as he examined the chest plating. The armour had held up pretty well. It was slightly glassy from the intense heat it had been subjected to but it was essentially intact, albeit with minor structural weakness. The downside to Goa'uld energy weapons was that its physical component was fairly negligible and energy could be dissipated, absorbed or redirected in many ways, which is essentially what the armour did. That same armour would shatter with ease with a single shot from a rail gun and Quinn thanked his lucky stars that Bast and her cronies hadn't cottoned onto that fact yet. "I think your good for another shot, Colonel, but I wouldn't chance it. At least, not from a Scorpion."

"I think I'll pass on that test, Captain." Avon replied as he staggered to his feet. "How are we doing?"

Quinn glanced at his tactical display and smiled humourlessly. "Not bad considering we're behind enemy lines and cut off from support by close to twenty thousand Jaffa. We're pretty much in position and the Gryphon Army Regulars have the frontal Legions pinned and are making their pincer push now. We only need to prevent any Legions from escaping our way."

Avon nodded in understanding and then sighed in disgust as he picked up his now bent and broken rail-gun. "Alright, have all Omega units form a siege line, oriented towards Manticore and the Jaffa Legions. We'll hold this point until the pincer reaches us."

* * * * * * * *

05:42 LOCAL
Edo Defense Command Centre

General Roberts had watched the tactical feed in awe as the various Gryphon Army elements surrounded almost twelve Jaffa Legions in a lightning pincer movement and then, over the next fifteen minutes, proceeded to slaughter every last Jaffa in that pocket with artillery and air strikes.

Shocking though the damage to the Jaffa was, Roberts had a growing respect for whoever finally took command over there. The first Jaffa commander never appeared to get over his initial panic and confusion of SG-Omega's rear area deep strike and the subsequent push forward by the Line troops and for a time, it looked like they might actually surround the entire twenty odd Legions attacking them but halfway through the battle, co-ordination among the Jaffa seemed to return and they skilfully managed to enact a breakout, escaping the battlefield with a little over ten Legions, almost half their original force.

A veritable cloud of Death Gliders had arrived to provide cover for the retreating Legions as they ran for the waiting Al'Keht long-range transports and they had taken a heavy toll of the counter-attacking Sabre fighters and Pegasus bombers but the fighting had almost completely died out now. Hek'at appeared to have pulled all of his remaining Legions back to his Wakazi base of operations and his orbiting Motherships had retreated to interplanetary space, well away from Gryphon.

At the moment, the tired and elated face of Commander Helen filled the main screen as she finished her after action report.

"...and though casualties among the lead pincer units was heavy, the exchange rate favours us by almost five to one."

Robert inclined his head; a new thought was flashing in his mind. "It might be idea to send out the land-trains a little earlier than usual. I think Hek'at will be too busy licking his wounds to be able to intercept any of the 'trains this time round."

Helen bit her lip and nodded in agreement, the same possibility had occurred to her also. "We'll only need two days at most to get the trains loaded up with the latest production and it'll take at least that long to get the crews together and for me to re-organise my troops for an escort."

Roberts smiled at her obvious competence. "You seem to have things in hand over there. Hand some of it off to your sub-ordinates and get some sleep. I'll organise the other land trains from here and see if we can get an entire rotation between the cities done before Hek'at recovers."

"Roger that, General." Commander Helen replied. "I'll be in contact tomorrow at 08:00. Manticore Defense Command, out."

Roberts turned from the now blank screen towards General Tyler and his assembled deputies. "Alright, Hek'at came close to hurting us this morning but instead, we've given him one hell of a bloody nose instead. Now I want to start rolling back some of forces in the occupied cities. Commander Ota, here's what I want you to do..."

Chapter 2
In The Line Of Fire...

January 15th 2010
Bast's Fortress, Sohag

"And I say you are a fool!"

Bast winced at the remark made by Lord Kiptakanae and raised her arms in a placating gesture towards Lady Amun'sul, for whom the insult was intended. The Lady System Lord gritted her teeth in rising anger as she spitted the other Goa'uld with a glare of pure loathing. Kiptakanae had become more and more belligerent, even insulting with the other members of the Union Council and Bast didn't know why. It wasn't like he was under any specific pressure from the Tau'ri or the Separatists; if anything the Separatists seemed to be ignoring him.

Bast smiled internally. Perhaps being ignored was what was pissing him off. "Please, Lord Kiptakanae, calm yourself. Lady Amun'sul has been performing admirably and I see no reason to reprimand her for the current stalemate in her sector of responsibility."

"I suppose she's doing a better job fighting than your pitiful First Prime. How many times has the Tau'ri beaten him? Why the hell don't you replace him with someone who can actually enforce a victory over those damned slaves?" He replied heatedly.

Biting back an instinctive response to protect her lover from the other System Lord's predations, she pretended to consider his question. "It is true Hek'at has failed on more than one occasion but it is who you fail to realise that no Jaffa commander has his string of victories against the Tau'ri either. Like it or not, he is the best commander we have available to us."

Kiptakanae glared at Bast but subsided.

Containing a sigh of relief, Bast directed the meeting to other matters. "Since Lady Asphe'kaht's destruction of Cimmeria, we have yet to encounter an Asgard vessel, receive a communication, or any form of punishment for so obvious a violation of the Protected Planets Treaty."

One of the other council members leaned forward. "What of the Nox and the damned Furlings?"

Bast shrugged. "Not a word from either of them. They're pacifists and isolationists. They've rarely strayed beyond their borders in nigh on two thousand years, I hardly think they'll start reaching out to us now."

She turned to Lady Asphe'kaht. "We have an opportunity to cut the Tau'ri Alliance off at the head. We need to attack Earth but we're stretched far too thin. The majority of our fleets are tied down in pacification or defensive duties except for your small squadron, Lady Asphe'kaht. I want you to join Lady Amun'sul and defeat Lady Morte on Toshan. She's been a thorn in our side for too long and defeating her will not only rid us of a major annoyance but will allow us to re-assign a fair number of ships for an invasion fleet."

Lady Asphe'kaht looked intrigued. "To attack Earth?"

Bast nodded. "We need to remove them from the equation once and for all. How soon can you attack Lady Morte?"

The other woman shrugged. "Say a week to consolidate our forces, maybe another week to formulate a strategy for total victory. Fourteen days from now, my Jaffa shall be victorious on Toshan."

"Excellent." Bast replied. "Once we've rid ourselves of Lady Morte, we'll have close to forty ships of various sizes freed up from our respective fleets and they will form the force that will destroy Earth and have us finally rid of O'Neill and his Alliance."

* * * * * * * *

Bast walked into her private chambers and gestured for her attendants to disappear. They were gone in a heartbeat and she sighed deeply as she brushed her long hair away from her face, finally beginning to feel herself starting to relax now that she was out of the meeting. A small smile appeared on her finely formed face and she moved towards a large golden sphere that floated about a foot above a metre high marble pedestal.

She waved her right hand, which wore her ribbon device, in front of the sphere. This was her private communication frequency between herself and her lover First Prime Hek'at and it was totally unaffected by the high-power jamming device she and her scientists had finally perfected. Cutting off all transmissions within a five thousand kilometres, she had furnished Hek'at with a supply of jamming satellites to seed in Gryphon orbit. It was only effective against anybody utilising Goa'uld technologies like the long-range communication devices for it had initially been designed to be used against other System Lords but, luckily for her, the Tau'ri had reverse engineered the Goa'uld communication devices and thus were vulnerable.

She however, knew which frequencies remained available and her transmission signal was unaffected but it took Hek'at almost a minute to return to his quarters aboard the 'Fist of the Gods' after it had alerted him to Bast's signal. Her smile grew wider as the golden sphere rippled and Hek'at's face appeared in front of her.

"Hek'at."

The First Prime's hard features seemed to soften. "My love, you are well?"

Bast laughed gently in delight. Every time they spoke, his first words were always the same, asking her if she was alright. She often wondered what Hek'at would do to the person that caused her distress just before she called him.

"Well enough, my love, and much better to see you." She replied.

Hek'at nodded in agreement. "You have brightened my day considerably."

Bast's brow furrowed in concern. "You're usually in quarters at this time of the day, is something happening there?"

Hek'at shrugged helplessly. "We've finally secured one of their city fortresses but there's barely anything left of the place and we're being slaughtered in the other two cities we're fighting for. It just goes on and on. We win a battle, they win a battle." Hek'at shook his head tiredly. "I've lost so many of my Jaffa..."

Her heart tore as she watched him struggle with the emotions he kept locked up and away from his men. "Be strong, my love, continue the fight and keep the Tau'ri occupied with Gryphon while I prepare to come at them where they least expect it."

Hek'at's dark mood lifted slightly. "Lady Asphe'kaht...?"

"...is on her way now. With a little luck, that damned Morte will fall in two weeks time and in little over a month, we will strike at Earth directly."

Savouring the anticipation for a moment, Hek'at shook his head and moved on to a point of concern. "My love, how was Lord Kiptakanae today?"

Bast frowned and inclined her head in curiosity. "No more obstinate and annoying than usual I suppose, why?"

"My people on Sohag occasionally pick up bits and pieces from the some of the other Jaffa under the various System Lord's in the Union." Hek'at explained.

Bast nodded, knowing that the relationships between Jaffa of differing System Lords were either very, very friendly or very, very chilly.

"Well..." Hek'at continued. "...apparently, Lord Kiptakanae has been acting out of character for a while now, he's been harsher on his subjects and on his Jaffa and their loyalty, if not exactly waning is becoming less than solid."

"Not uncommon among the Separatist rabble." Bast supposed. "He has become more hard line this past year or so."

Hek'at shrugged. "It's just a feeling but he has a lot of influence among the System Lord Unionists he represents on the Council. If he's becoming hardline and gaining Separatist tendencies..."

Bast made a noise of agreement while she though furiously. I must be getting tired to miss the signs like that.

"Thank you, Hek'at, I think I'll keep an eye of the good System Lord Kiptakanae and see if he may need replacing." She shook her head slightly in disgust. "Enough of this talk about plots and intrigue. We haven't spoken in almost a week. Talk to me, my love. Tell me of your thoughts of when the war will be won and the Galaxy ours..."

* * * * * * * * * *

14:00 ZULU
Stargate Command (West), Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

General O'Neill was sat alone in his office, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes tiredly. He'd spent the entire morning going over readiness reports, logistical reports, intelligence reports, reports of reports...he was well and truly sick of reports. As Supreme Allied Commander of the Earth Alliance military, few people were senior to him and he could pawn a lot of work off onto his sub-ordinates if he needed to, 'But alas,' he thought wryly, 'I have had the misfortune to have been born with a sense of duty and it is currently my duty to know that the 3816th Transport Wing has managed to secure a new logistical line along three Alliance worlds that doesn't rely on the Stargate but on Fleet transportation.'

Snorting in half self-disgust and half amusement, O'Neill picked up the logistical report and finished reading it. It really was quite important to open up lines of communication that didn't rely on the Stargate because, as the SGC was coming to acknowledge more and more, Stargate operations can be interfered with by a surprisingly large number of reasons and not all of them were due to the enemy. At least four strikes this past year had been aborted due to solar interference preventing the formation of wormholes.

Knowing first hand the dangers of wormhole travel during sunspot activity, O'Neill nodded in wholehearted agreement of the report's contents.

O'Neill glanced up from the report as his communication unit buzzed for his attention. Pressing the button, he opened the line. "O'Neill." He announced.

"Please hold for the President." A pleasant, sexless voice announced.

O'Neill grunted slightly in response and waited. Twenty seconds later, a familiar voice came across the line.

"Jack, how long will it take you to get to Washington?" President Kinsey asked, without preamble.

"About an hour, sir." O'Neill replied. "I've got nothing important on my plate at the minute so I can leave immediately if necessary."

Kinsey's snort was easily heard on the other end. "Oh, it's necessary, Jack...I've got a copy of a proposal here from your chain of command about seeding the space around Earth with mines and weapon platforms! Now I know that you are still a member of the U.S Air Force and as such are still subject to my orders but as Supreme Commander for the Alliance Military you are also way outside my chain of command and answer only to the Alliance High Council of which Premier Kutsov is currently seated on, but dammit Jack, this proposal is way outside of your authority!"

O'Neill winced at the decibel level near the end of Kinsey's tirade and shook his head wearily. "Mr President, I know you've always had concerns about the extreme military expansion since the start of this war but if you want me to defend Earth then you'll step back from blocking this proposal."

"It's not enough that we have those damned Planetary Defence Centres dotting the world like blisters of Armageddon but now you want to fill the sky with nuclear weapons?" Kinsey raged, barely hearing O'Neill's words.

O'Neill was about to retaliate hotly when something inside him seemed to suddenly fall calm, providing a moment of clarity, allowing him to empathise with Kinsey's feelings on the matter. Kinsey had never like the military, had always abhorred weapons and has a knee-jerk reaction to put a stop to the construction of the only things that will actually save the planet. Not a logical reaction on the President's part but then he wasn't thinking logically at the moment.

Taking a deep breath, O'Neill spoke softly. "Mr President, please think about this...we're barely holding our own in ship-to-ship engagements with the Goa'uld which is pretty astounded considering the technological level were coming from but that's still no good against an enemy that can overwhelm us with numbers if it ever got it's act together. We need as many force multipliers as possible if we're to stand a chance and now, the PDC's are a good start, with their shields and weapons, they'll make every Alliance planet a tough nut for the System Lords to crack. The orbital mines and weapons platforms will make it even tougher."

Silence met his appeal for several seconds and then a calmer President Kinsey spoke. "And what happens when a mine falls out of orbit and lands on London?"

O'Neill shrugged. "We have excellent safeguards and contingencies against any such thing even think about happening. What I'd like to do sir, is to come to Washington with some of my people and you can grill them until you're as confident of the system as I am."

Frowning, O'Neill wished for the days when he was just a Colonel who was more than will to make a wisecrack against authority regardless of consequences. Now, he couldn't run the risk of someone else less able doing his job.

"Okay, General. I've calmed down now." Kinsey replied. "I think it would be an excellent idea if you could come to the White House. I'll assemble a few people who'd benefit from some reassurance, myself included, and we'll meet with your people."

"Thank you, sir." O'Neill replied with barely concealed relief. That was one major crisis averted before it had a chance to get started.

As Kinsey disconnected, O'Neill opened another line to the Scientific Support Division. The duty officer there answered and O'Neill grinned in anticipation of the reaction his announcement of a trip to Washington would bring. The guys and girls down there didn't get out enough as it is.

* * * * * * * * *

19:52 ZULU
January 22nd 2010
ENS Ark Royal

Eight days later, Admiral Kent sat in his chair on the flag deck of the ENS Ark Royal and studied the datapad in his hand with satisfaction. Third Fleet had taken heavy losses in ships and in personnel at Gryphon but, thanks to the steadily increasing industry of the Alliance, the Fleet was almost back up to full strength which was now actually 50% larger than before Gryphon. The latest batch of construction from the Alliance shipyards was going to go towards building a Fourth Fleet but Alliance Command decided that the ships would be better off going to boosting the firepower of the existing fleets, especially after the events at Gryphon. Not only that but that many new replacement personnel that had arrived fresh from the Alliance Naval Academy in Southern France had proven themselves very well in the last round of fleet and shipboard drills, the veterans among the fleet having taken the newbie's in hand and imparted to them their hard earned lessons.

"Well, gentlemen, I think we can consider the recent re-qualification trails a success and Third Fleet combat ready." Kent announced easily.

Captain Amanda Tyler, commanding officer of the Ark Royal and Captain Hradetsky, Kent's Hungarian chief of staff, were stood casually by the Admiral's side and the skeleton crew of officers and technicians on the flag deck went about routine shipboard operations. Most of the crew of Third Fleet were on final leave groundside before Third Fleet left on its six-month patrol. On the main viewscreen, the destroyers of Home Fleet could be seen moving back and forth in the space around Earth, laying patterns of orbital mines and weapon platforms, there were even a handful of battleship-sized fortresses being constructed as well.

Hradetsky frowned slightly as he studied his own datapad. "If we need to, sir, but the fleet's destroyer screen is still weak. We're waiting on those six destroyers from Entrica. They'd delayed by about two weeks thanks to some electronics problems they've been having."

The Admiral nodded and looked to Captain Tyler for her opinion. Tyler shrugged slightly. "Of course, we'd be better with a full strength screen but we've got enough to do the job for two weeks at least. I see no reason to delay our departure, the destroyers can join us on station."

Kent smiled at Hradetsky who was cautious by nature and by job description. "I believe the Captain is right, Vladimir, we can manage without those destroyers for a while. Send out the recall orders. Third Fleet leaves in three days."

23:53 ZULU
Stargate Facility, Spearhead

CHEVRON SEVEN, ENCODED AND LOCKED!

SHA-CHUNK!!

WHHRRR-FA-WOOOSH!!

As the Stargate exploded into the life, few were actually watching the spectacle in the Gate Facility. The soldiers of SG-Alpha were focussed on the technicians that were readying three drone aircraft and the Paveway wormhole attack system. Less than thirty seconds after the wormhole formed, the first drone launched.

Colonel Rachel Bannon walked into the Gate Facility, pulling her hair tightly back into a ponytail, a scowl on her catwalk model features as her troops stiffened to attention. Nobody messed with the 'Old Lady' when she was in a mood or she'd use your guts for gun grease. Master Sergeant Robert Powell walked slightly behind her, holding her helmet while she finished getting ready. She had just received word that her request to mount an offensive ground assault against Gryphon had been denied 'pending Fleet expansion'. While the Fleet had trouble finding its ass on a good day, people she knew were fighting a desperate battle against overwhelming odds six thousand light years away. She hadn't worked her way up from a second lieutenant in SG-Alpha to being its commanding officer, only to watch her friends, her family go off to fight the important battles without her.

She saw the smoke trail of the just departed drone dissipate thanks to the room's air blowers and grabbing her helmet from her trusted sergeant, she looked up towards the wall screen in front of the Stargate.

It was split into two segments, one was the feed from the drone that currently showed static and the other showed the control centre of Spearhead that was actually situated at the main base almost two kilometres away. Brigadier General Samantha Carter was sat in a chair next to the Tech. Sgt at the main console. In the background, Bannon could see Colonel Travis of SG-Beta and Colonel Parmesh of SG-Gamma in full combat gear.

The static cleared from the drone's transmission and a bird's eye view of the area surrounding the Stargate appeared. Almost immediately, the Paveway system stirred to life, the servos whining as the guns started to track the targets designated by the tactical officer in the command centre.

The chain guns burst to life, a steady 'buurrppp' issued forth even as a thousand rounds a minute spewed into the wormhole, travelled a hundred light years and arrived at the other end, only to cut a squad of Jaffa in half. The video feed showed a Scorpion assault vehicle move into view, aiming itself at the Stargate even as it tried to position itself out of the wormhole's field of fire.

In the command centre, the tactical officer designated the Scorpion and pressed a series of commands into his console. Two AGM-64 'Maverick' anti-tank missiles were immediately lowered in front of the Stargate and the first one fired, disappearing into the wormhole immediately. The second missile fired barely a second after the first one had left. The troops of SG-Alpha watched the video feed intently as the first missile screamed out of the wormhole at the other end and arced up into the sky, carving a graceful loop in the sky. The second missile appeared at the other end of the wormhole in a cloud of exhaust and followed closely on the first missile's heels as it aimed itself at the Scorpion.

A growl of satisfaction rippled among the troops as the first Maverick slammed into the Scorpion, dropping its shields and scorching the armour. The second missile flew in unopposed and ripped the Scorpion apart.

"Colonel Bannon?"

Rachel Bannon looked across the screen at the feed from the Command Centre.

"Are you and your people ready to go, Colonel?" Carter asked tensely for despite the successful start, she knew too well what a meat grinder they were going off to attack, even as Paveway finished off the last of the Jaffa guarding the Gate at the other end.

Colonel Bannon nodded tightly. She was eager to start taking her frustration out on some Jaffa. "Turn us loose, ma'am."

Carter suppressed a small smile and announced formally, "SG-Alpha, you have a 'go'. Good luck, and good hunting."

Bannon saluted sharply and then turned round to face her troops. "Alright, people, our exit point's clear, let's move out before they have time to recover!"

Feet pounded as SG-Alpha charged up the ramp and ran into the Stargate to attack one of Bast's fleet supply bases.

* * * * * *

Carter sighed as the Stargate shut down after the last SG-Alpha trooper left and turned to the communication link to SGC-East in Khabarovsk, back on Earth. "They're all yours now, Sulakov. Keep an eye on them."

The ex-SG Assault team trooper and CO of SGC-East nodded in acknowledgement. "We'll take care of them, Spearhead. SGC-East, out."

Turning from the communication console, Carter faced her other two Assault team leaders. "Colonel Travis, you're up next. Get your people into position."

Colonel Travis grinned in anticipation and gave a quick salute before he headed out of the command centre. Colonel Parmesh, who still remained, shook his head in mild amusement. "Now there goes a man with immense job satisfaction."

Carter nodded absently as she studied the strategic display of the Galaxy that currently filled the wall screen. Three planets were highlighted in red with one, PX-742, pulsed steadily. That was the planet currently under attack by SG-Alpha. Jack had come up with a plan to tie up the rest of Bast's reserve forces in the hope of forcing her to abort any planned attack upon Earth or any other planet. Spearhead's current role in the plan was a three-pronged raid into her deep territories, hitting key installations, not to destroy them specifically but to strip them of their Jaffa complements, forcing her to replace them.

Parmesh watched the SG-Beta troopers move into the Gate Facility and position themselves for their attack. "Do you think this will work, ma'am?"

"I honestly don't know, Colonel." Carter replied. "O'Neill's plan is sound but one, we aren't totally sure how large a reserve she has and two, she's smart and has never shown herself to be one to dance to another person's tune. She may ignore our efforts and hit Earth anyway."

The Colonel frowned and shook his head. "I'm just a grunt, ma'am, and I prefer a straight up fight to all this shadow play."

Carter winced and spitted the other man with a glare. "I'm not that old, Colonel, I still remember how to hold a gun."

His lips trembling with a suppressed smile, Parmesh assumed a parade ground stance, his eyes locked onto a point five centimetres above her head. "Of course, ma'am. I simply meant that your job is obviously a lot more complex than mine."

"Comes with star, Colonel, comes with the star." Carter replied, referring to her rank of Brigadier General. "Anyway, we can't afford to go toe-to-toe with Bast just yet but that day's getting closers and closer and I've got a little payback stored up for what they did to Cimmeria. Meanwhile, we'll conduct these hit and run attacks for a while and see if we can't stay alive until that day."

She turned to the Tech Sgt beside her and gestured to the video display of the Stargate. "Dial up the target world for SG-Beta, sergeant."

11:29 ZULU
January 30th 2010
Mothership 'Overseer', Toshan System, Separatist Territory of Lady Morte

Lady Amun'sul sat on the command throne on the bridge of her Mothership and smiled in dark pleasure. Her reinforced fleet had surprised the three Hat'ak Motherships patrolling Lady Morte's borders and destroyed them utterly. As a bonus, due to the combination of surprise and the jamming technology Bast had finally developed, the Motherships were unable to warn any of Morte's other forces as to their imminent destruction.

Now, her current fleet of two Shal'kra class Motherships and twelve Hat'ak's had entered Lady Morte's home system unnoticed. The single Shal'kra and eight Hat'ak's in orbit of the fourth planet in the Toshan system were the system's only defenses and formidable though that small fleet might be, it wasn't in the same league as hers.

Lady Amun'sul turned to her First Prime, her eyes flashing with dangerous intent. "The fleet will advance."

The First Prime bowed deeply. "Yes, my Lady." He replied before turning to the other Jaffa on the bridge, giving more detailed commands for the fleet.

* * * * * * * *

The 'Overseer' charged into the system at incredible speed, six Hat'ak's arrayed in a protective screen around the massive vessel. The other Shal'kra class vessel, the 'Kindjal', similarly surrounded by the other six Hat'ak's, rose upward on a wide curving course, heading above the system's plane of ecliptic intending to arc down upon the ships defending Toshan in a vertical flanking manoeuvre.

As soon as the Unionist ships entered the Toshan system proper, Lady Morte's sensors picked them and the alarms began to sound.

* * * * * * * *

"What is the meaning of this, Jaffa?" Lady Morte asked with gritted teeth. She had been enjoying her newest slave when the alarms had started to blare, her First Prime was nowhere to be found, forcing her to come directly to the bridge.

The Jaffa Second on the bridge silently cursed the First Prime for not being here, forcing him to report directly to his God. "Mm...My Lady, our sensors had detected two large forces of Union Mothership closing in on the planet."

Loosing a vile Egyptian curse, Lady Morte stalked over to her throne and sat down carefully, her eyes never leaving the tactical display showing the massive force bearing down upon her.

"Have all the ground based garrisons been alerted?" She asked quietly.

The Jaffa looked to another, who nodded firmly and he suppressed a visible sigh of relief. "They have, my Lady."

Nodding absently in response, her expression barely flickers as her First Prime finally arrived on the bridge.

He moved in front of her throne and dropped to one knee. "My deepest apologies, my Lady, for not being at my post for I was..."

The other Jaffa on the bridge never got to hear just what it was the First Prime had been doing for Lady Morte never took her eyes off the forlorn situation on the tactical display as she raised her hand adorned with a ribbon device and sent of pulse of intense energy into her First Prime, sending his smoking, shattered body across the bridge and slamming into the bulkhead where it slumped lifelessly to the floor.

She finally turned to face the Second who had been in charge of the bridge at the time of the alert. "You are now my First Prime, Kel'dan, and your first duty as such is to rid me of these attackers. I shall retire to my palace on Toshan and allow you to fight unencumbered by my presence among you."

The new First Prime bowed in acknowledgement and spun round to face the rest of the Jaffa after she had left the bridge. "Have all the ground-based udajeets, tel'tac's and al'kesh's launch and send them against the secondary force approaching the planet. Our fleet will intercept the enemies' primary force. Someone send a signal to the rest of the fleet and order them to return to Toshan immediately."

"But Sec...First Prime," One Jaffa Second spoke quietly as the others moved to implement their orders. "Our other ships are too far away, they'll never return in time."

First Prime Kel'dan glared at his now-subordinate friend. "I know, Pra'ten, but what choice do we have. With a little luck and the favour of our Gods, we'll hold them away from Toshan long enough for some of the fleet to arrive and save whatever remains."

* * * * * * * * *

Lady Amun'sul admired the tactical thinking of whoever was in command over there. It was undoubtedly someone other than Lady Morte or her First Prime for Amun'sul had known them both for a long time and they was more hedonists and bullies than warriors and had held out against her forces only through the sheer number of ships available to her. No, the one now in charge over there was smart and dangerous.

The cloud of fighters and bombers that had launched from the planet was large enough to slow her flanking force, despite their lack of capital ships and their main defence fleet that was sticking together and moving out to meet her force, outnumbered the 'Overseer' and her escorts by a big enough margin to make victory less than assured, forcing her to recall her secondary force from its flanking attack upon the planet.

Which is why she had held Lady Asphe'kaht in reserve. Her squadron, consisting of one Shal'kra-class Mothership, the 'Victorious', and five Hat'ak's waited just outside the system, ready to hyperspace in on receiving her signal.

"We're within weapons range." Her First Prime announced from his post at the command console at the front of the bridge.

"Then by all means, open fire." She replied calmly.

* * * * * * * * *

Orange bursts of plasma filled the space between the two fleets of Motherships in storm of weapons fire that battered shields down, melted armour and ripped open compartments to space, sending atmosphere and Jaffa alike spilling out into the void.

Lady Amun'sul's fleet tried to maneuver wide of Lady Morte's defence fleet but they easily kept position between them and the planet. She frowned as the Union ships, instead of the widely spread fire hitting her entire group of ship she expected, focused their weapons fire on one or two of her ships at a time, battering them to uselessness and moving on to the next. It was no more than her fleet was already doing to the enemy but she hadn't expected it and she thanked the universe that the new, 'competent' commander over there hadn't been promoted a lot sooner.

Udajeets buzzed around the entire battlefield like flies, stinging the capital ships and hunting each other down in numerous dogfights, small explosions punctuating each short battle and there were a great many small explosions filling the void around the massive, golden Motherships.

On Lady Morte's flagship, her new First Prime that was causing Amun'sul so much trouble stared intently at the plot as the bridge shook under the blasts hammering at the flagship. His fleet was taking a pounding but the opposing Motherships - his sensor officer had confirmed that they belonged to Amun'sul - were receiving an even harder battering at the hands of his vessels.

That secondary force should have tried to trap us between them, he thought darkly. Even now, as we overwhelm the primary force, it still fights against the fighters and bombers and makes no move to help its troubled fleet elements out. They can't be that arrogant, even though we're somehow being jammed and can't get a signal out to the rest of the fleet. Something's wrong.

"Are we picking up anything else on sensors?" He called out, his entire body tensed with the expectation of something bad about to happen.

The sensor operator opened his mouth to reply in the negative when his console began to beep urgently for attention. "Massive increase in theta radiation, highly localized and increasing exponentially!"

"Where?" Kel'dan interrupted knowing full well what the radiation meant.

The sensor operator's reply caused an icy fist to squeeze upon his heart. "Dead astern!"

* * * * * * * * *

As the battle continued to rage between the forces of the two System Lords, the space behind the Separatist forces of Toshan seemed to twist tightly and then explode as Lady Asphe'kaht's forces came screaming out of hyperspace, their weapons blazing orange fire.

Lady Morte's already battered, streaming atmosphere and trailing wreckage, were totally surprised. Kel'dan tried to break away from this new threat in his rear but his vessels were too slow to react and too enmeshed with the primary group of Amun'sul's vessel as they began to fire once more with renewed vigour. His ships writhed and burned like moths caught in a flame. A new wave of udajeets swept outward from the ambushing force and tore into the much-reduced ranks of Kel'dan's fighters, hunting them down in packs, herding the few remaining small craft into crossfire's and annihilating them totally.

Within minutes, all but two of Kel'dan's Hat'ak's had been destroyed and his remaining two Motherships were barely recognisable as spaceships. Their golden hulls blackened, twisted and cratered, weapons silently and drifting with no engine power, their reactors having been shut down to prevent overloading. The Shal'kra flagship heaved as another volley of fire from the fresh fleet that had appeared behind them slammed into its remaining shields, overloading the generators and blowing fuses along half the ship. Amun'sul's force fired once more, the plasma blasts precisely targeted, taking out the remaining shield grid and weapons batteries. In less than a minute, the scorched and buckled Shal'kra-class Mothership was dark and adrift lifelessly.

Lady Amun'sul sat back in her throne with immense satisfaction as the enemy before her was finally defeated. Lady Morte had grown too over-confident and lax and was now beginning to pay the price. Lady Asphe'kaht and her fleet now moved quickly to support the secondary force in its fight against the udajeets and al'kesh's.

Soon Lady Morte's territories and Jaffa would renew their allegiance to me, finally allowing Bast to marshal enough forces to strike Earth down. Oh, yes, today was turning out to be a very good day indeed.

* * * * * * * *

"Report!" First Prime Kel'dan called out hoarsely as he pulled himself up from the floor of his shattered bridge. Most of the lighting was out and the environmental systems must be off-line for smoke filled the upper half of the bridge and showed no signs of dissipating. Bulkheads had collapsed and support girders had fallen in several places across the bridge. The few, remaining active consoles flickered errantly as the rest sparked heavily.

For a few seconds, no one answered his call and Kel'dan thought he was the only one left alive on the bridge when a groan emanated from behind the command console. His old friend, Pra'ten, hauled himself painfully upright; a nasty cut ran across the left side of his face. Shaking off his disorientation, he gingerly accessed the flickering command console.

"We're dead in the water. Everything's offline, even emergency life support, I've got minimal computer function and partial power to the escape pods. There should be enough to get at least few running of get us off this damned ship."

Kel'dan listened to the litany of damage without blinking and began to shake his head. "We're not going anywhere."

Pra'ten raised an eyebrow questioningly and Kel'dan smiled tightly. "Go if you want but badly damaged though this ship is, I'm not leaving them anything to salvage. It shouldn't be too hard to blow the reactor from here. I might even be able to take a couple of the enemy with me."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Pra'ten snorted in amusement. "The reactors barely stable enough as it is, you can sneeze hard and the damned thing will probably explode."

Kel'dan walked over and placed his right hand on Pra'ten's right shoulder. His friend stiffened but returned the gesture and they stood there, among the ruins of the bridge, studying each other for the last time. "Die well, old friend." Pra'ten growled out, his throat tight.

The First Prime smiled easily. "Look after Kel'len and the little ones, Pra'ten."

The other man nodded tightly and released him before turning quickly and heading out of the wreckage of the bridge, hoping beyond hope to find a functioning escape pod and see his wife and children again.

* * * * * * * *

Lady Amun'sul was watching the bombardment of Lady Morte's palace on Toshan proceed apace when her First Prime grunted in mild surprise.

"My lady, the reactor onboard the enemy flagship has increased in power by fifty percent...and is still rising." He reported.

Amun'sul shifted her display to that of the enemy Shal'kra showing numerous escape pods jetting out of the crippled flagship. One of her Hat'ak's had moved up close to the larger vessel so as to commence salvage operations. Despite the heavy damage it had taken, there was still a lot of ship left. "Are they powering up their weapons...their engines?"

He First Prime shook his head. "I'm not reading the power going anywhere...my lady!" He called out. "The containment field is flickering, I think the reactor's going to blow!"

Amun'sul's eyes flashed in shock and anger. "Order all ships to pull clear! Get the 'Morning Star' out of there!"

Though the First Prime moved to communicate with the Hat'ak, its commander had already seen the danger and, with the unique abilities of the Mothership's reactionless engines, it immediately began to move directly away from the doomed Shal'kra with incredible speed.

Within seconds, it was over five kilometres away, which was enough to ensure its immediate survival, but after it had barely cleared eight kilometres, the reactor finally blew. The explosion was almost beyond comprehension, the safeguards which normally prevent such a massive eruption, even in the face of destruction by an enemy, were purposely disabled and the reactor was allowed to feed upon the ship before it exploded.

The tremendous shockwave swept outward in an intense spherical wave of force that slammed into the 'Morning Star', sending it tumbling end over end, dangerously depleting its shields and causing its own reactor to flutter nervously.

When the explosion finally faded away, there was nothing left of Lady Morte's massive flagship except a fairly intense collection of gas and remnant plasma that would mark the spot of the Mothership's demise for the next week.

The "Morning Star' continued to tumble helplessly but two other Hat'ak's were already manoeuvring to capture it before it could hit anything.

Sitting back in her throne, Lady Amun'sul shook her head once more. Yes, she was glad that the career of the new commander of Lady Morte had been brief. It was almost certain that it was he who had overloaded that reactor and it was a shame that she never would have had the chance to convince him to join her.

At least Lady Morte was now dead and the core of her forces crushed. With a little luck, she would be able to convince the remainder of Morte's fleet to serve under her now, greatly expanding her power base. She turned to her First Prime who was monitoring the ground assault on Toshan.

"Send a signal to Bast." She ordered. "Inform her of our victory over the Separatist forces of Toshan and that we shall remain here for a few days in order to secure the rest of Lady Morte's forces. We shall, however, arrive at Staging Point Alpha at the expected time."

As her First Prime nodded in acknowledge and began to compose the message to Sohag, she watched the 'Morning Star' regain control under the tractor beams of its sister ships, she sighed deeply. Yes, a great shame indeed.

Continued in part 2